Architect vs. Architecture

April 7^th, 2016

Architecture Depends by Jeremy Till

Lecture by Prof. Jigna Desai

Architecture is a profession with the power to alter the environment that people inhabit, thus changing their lives. This power comes with great responsibility, but often the creator’s humility is misplaced. In urban projects today, architectural development is looked at with suspicion by the concerned members of the public due to their limited involvement. Participation of the stakeholders during the process of a project can reinforce the faith of the people in the development and eliminate any doubt that they may harbor. But in today’s times when the architects’ responsibilities are being battered by engineers and project managers, if even public was allowed to control design what would be the role of the architects? Participation, hence, becomes a method to deconstruct what it means to be an architect, as it questions the premise of the individual author, the premise of control and expertise in the profession. To support this belief British architect and academician Jeremy Till in his essay titled “The Negotiation of Hope” in the publication “Architecture and Participation” states that “Participation (of other agencies and people) undeniably challenges and upsets some of the standard conventions that architectural profession is founded on.”

The idea that architecture is an autonomous and self-referential discipline is a deluded one. In his book “Architecture Depends” (published by the MIT Press, 2009), Jeremy Till tries to address the obvious but uncomfortable argument that- architecture is a dependent discipline, however as a profession and practice, it does everything to resist that dependency. He suggests that architecture is a contingent discipline, and that architects need to “open up to dependency not as a threat but an opportunity. And that in that engagement there is the potential for a reformulation of architectural practice that would resist its present marginalization and find new hope”.

Established texts of architectural history have always remained within the boundaries of a self-referential architectural world oblivious of the other conditions that shape architectural production. Jeremy Till remarks that architects and architectural theorists are so absorbed into the architectural world that they ignore reality for the sake of their ideals, which he believes is littered with references to philosophical texts and has little reference to social theory. Till has researched extensively on the social and political aspects of architecture and the built environment. He has co-authored “Flexible Housing”, “Spatial Agency”.  He criticizes the current architectural academic scenario as it creates a false environment for projects ignoring the actual contingencies. This intellectual framework eventually traps the architect to practice perfection and he does so within this ‘black box’.

Till oscillates his discussions between the fields of reference and practice and that they rarely come together. There are constant references made to philosophers Henry Lefebvre and Zygmunt Bauman about the state of modernity. He vehemently quotes Prof. Peter Guthrie “All architecture is but waste in transit” to state the powerful role of time in the production, use and reuse of buildings.

Lastly this controversial book drives home the important point about ethics in architecture. Jeremy Till shoots down the codified ethics of RIBA and ARB stating the “sanctimonious sentiment (…) that allows architects to enter into a comfort zone in which they believe that they are doing good by doing what they do best, namely making beautiful things”. He promotes “architectural intelligence rather than architectural knowledge”. Revisiting his core idea Till explains how “architecture’s dependency becomes an opportunity with the architect acting as an open-minded listener (…) collaborating in the realization of other people’s unpolished visions”. Till hopes that the profession will ground itself in social and political realms and have a firm ethical approach.

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